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Category: Desserts

The family and I are celebrating the return of one of our favorite geeky shows tonight with fish fingers and custard! If you’re also a Doctor Who fan you know what’s up, if not you can get a little background here.

This is actually a surprise for the girls — they know I’ve been in the kitchen all morning baking but haven’t been allowed to come in and see what it is yet. And with that I have to admit that it’s not really fish fingers — we’re not that hardcore! These are actually shortbread cookies rolled in graham cracker crumbs, swiped from bakingdom.

We’re fairly new to the Doctor Who obsession — I want to say it’s only been a year or so — but it makes my little sci-fi heart happy, and fills a void left by Battlestar Galactica and Firefly and Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teen (it was not cool to be into sci-fi when I was a teenager so many hundreds of years ago, so it’s fun to get into it with the girls now, as evidenced by the TARDIS cake for the 14-year-old last November).

The custard (actually vanilla pudding) was also homemade because I’d already run out once to pick up forgotten graham crackers, and I couldn’t bring myself to run out again for a box of pudding. I put up with standing at the stove for what seemed like forever, but it was worth it. Homemade pudding is cool.

The fish fingers are delicious too, very light and crunchy. They’re really close to being too salty, though, so when I make them again I’ll go with just 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

If you’re a geek at heart and a fan of the Doctor, you can get the fish finger cookie recipe from bakingdom.com, and the homemade vanilla pudding recipe I used is below:

In a heavy medium saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Add milk and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until bubbly. Lower heat and cook and stir for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat. Gradually stir 1 cup of the milk mixture into the beaten eggs.

Add the egg mixture to the saucepan with the rest of the milk mixture and bring almost to a bubble but do not boil. Reduce heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla extract.

Pour pudding into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least six hours before serving.

As others participating pointed out, this was a really labor-intensive recipe! It easily took half a day to complete, and while it was delicious I’m not quite sure it was worth it. The whole family loves apples and apple desserts, but I kind of wish I’d followed a few of the tips that pointed out you could just use a jar of apple sauce for the filling.

I actually left out the fresh white bread crumbs because I didn’t have any (just wheat, which probably would have been fine), but it worked just as well.

I also wish I’d stuck with my usual pie crust recipe since this one crumbled right up on me and I ended up having to just press it into the pie pan (no tart pan here — yet 😉 )

It really was delicious, and while I probably won’t make it again we’re all glad I gave it a shot!

To get the memory of our last gingerbread experience out of my head, the girls and I decided to make our favorite gingersnap cookies this afternoon.

These gingersnaps have a permanent place in my Christmas cookie giveaways for the neighbors, and they’re always the first to go when I have the leftovers sitting on the counter for my family.

The girls have fun rolling the dough in the sugar before putting them on the pan, and as you can imagine the house smells amazing while they bake. While the outside of these cookies gets nice and crunchy, once you take them out of the oven they deflate a bit and create an amazing chewy cookie.